Volume 2 – Chapter 26: Beneath the Fractured Sky

[July 10 – 4:45 PM]

The sky before us was dark, weighed down by the golden-yellow color of a sun descending below the horizon. It was warm but the air held a hint of coolness, as if it was trying to showcase all that was changing — how time was escaping, like grains of sand, between the fingers.

Rika was sitting next to me, her fingers tracing the rim of a half-empty glass of water. Condensation formed, creating delicate haloes on the wooden table; tiny imprints that would evaporate before anyone got a good look at them.

“It’s going too fast,” she murmured. She said it in her calm voice, but I recognized that calm. It was the kind that could hardly cover up the tempest beneath.

I glanced at her, observing how her gaze flitted toward the window, unfocused, immersed in thoughts she didn’t yet say aloud.

“We knew it would,” I said. “It is all changing too fast for us to hang onto.

A slow breath escaped her lips and her shoulders fell just a bit. “I thought being home would normalize things again.”

“But it doesn’t,” I filled in for her.

She nodded.

Outside, the world went on as if it weren’t disintegrating. Everyone still walked the streets. The wind still made the trees rustle. But underneath, an irreparable fracture, a crack that ran through everything we used to think was a certainty.

Rika’s fingers finally stopped moving. “Kaito… do you think we’re making the right choice?”

The question hung between us.

I knew what she meant. That the getting married part was not a big deal. It didn’t even have to do with survival. It was about choosing to hold on to something that was real, something that was unshaken, while everything else fell apart around us.

I took her hand, and I stroked the back of it with my thumb. “It’s the only option that makes sense for me.”

At that she turned all the way toward me, her face inscrutable. “Even with all this going on? Even with the uncertainty?”

I gave a small nod. “Especially with everything that’s going on. We don’t know how much time we have, Rika. But I do know I want to spend it with you.”

A breath caught in her throat. For an instant, she seemed as though she had more to say, but then settled for simply squeezing my hand tightly, as if she was trying to root herself firmly in that certainty.

The silence between us was not awkward. It was heavy but not stiflingly so. Things unsaid: it simply was full — of too much feel, too large to fit in verbal syllables.

And then the knock came.

Sharp. Urgent. A sound that shouldn’t be here in this quiet moment.

I shot Rika one last look, then rose and walked to the door. The handle felt cool under my fingers as I turned it.

The face that popped up on the other end was not one I was expecting.

Hiro.

His eyes were dark with a something I couldn’t put my finger on, his habitual easygoing nature absent.

“Kaito.” His voice was low, measured. “We need to talk.”

Rika was already standing up behind me, her presence a stone wall against the storm.

I took a step to the side, allowing Hiro in, pulling the door closed behind him.

“I’m being stupid,” I said, watching the way his jaw set.

He exhaled slowly before nodding. “It’s worse than we thought.”

Rika’s hands balled into fists at her sides. “What do you mean?”

Hiro waited only a moment to speak. “They’re not being straight with the public. The effect … the math … it’s not what they’re saying anymore. It’s changing. And not in a good way.”

My blood ran cold. “How bad?”

His eyes darted back and forth between the two of us. “Bad enough that people at high levels are already making escape plans.”

The words fell silent like stones in my belly.

Rika took a step closer. “Are you sure?”

Hiro’s lips pursed into a thin line. “I have a source. Someone who reviewed the data firsthand. It’s accelerating, Kaito. The gap is shorter than they’re letting on.”

The room was filled with a hollow silence.

This was it. The reality we had been preparing for, inching closer than any of us ever wanted to acknowledge.

Rika swallowed hard. “How much time?”

Hiro exhaled sharply. “Maybe months. Maybe less.”

The world seemed to have tilted a bit, the weight of the truth pressing the air firmly into your lungs.

I turned to Rika. She was pale, her eyes far away.

I took her hand again and held it tightly. “It doesn’t change anything.”

Her eyes snapped to mine. “How can you say that?”

“Because we already knew,” I said softly. “At the heart of it, we knew it wasn’t going to end. We knew things were going to get worse.”

Her breath trembled. “But this fast?”

“No one’s ever ready, Rika.” I squeezed her hand. “But that’s why this is something we have to clutch onto. Hold onto us.”

Hiro shifted uncomfortably. “I know you guys have other plans, but… I had to tell you. Because if there’s anything you need to do, anything you need to settle before — ” He didn’t complete the thought.

He didn’t have to.

Rika exhaled shakily. Then, before I had time to even realize what was happening, she turned in to me, burying her face into my shoulder.

I didn’t hesitate. Arms around her, hands soothingly rubbing up and down her back.

“We’ll get through it,” I whispered into her hair.

She quaked slightly in my arms. “How can you be so sure?”

I pulled back enough to meet her eyes, my fingers tilting her chin up the slightest bit. And I kissed her, without another word.

It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t desperate. It was vast, grounding, a speechless promise.

When we broke apart, I rested my forehead on hers. “Because we’ll endure it together.”

There was something fragile in her eyes, but she nodded. “Together.”

Hiro turned away, as if to give us the moment.

Then with a breath, Rika got back on her feet. There was still fear in her expression, but beneath that — beneath the heaviness of everything — there was steel.

“We don’t have time to lose,” she said.

I nodded. “Then let’s not waste it.”

Hiro sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I hope you all know what you’re doing.”

I looked over at Rika then turned back toward him.

“So do I.”

But as the words were coming out, I knew one thing for sure:

No matter what came next—

We weren’t backing down.

And we weren’t letting go.